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The federal government is in the process of auctioning off a famous office building in Laguna Niguel, California. The Chet Holifield Federal Building, sometimes referred to as the Ziggurat, was designed by William Pereira, a well regarded architect. It’s an interesting building, done in a sort of Mesopotamian style, but to my eye not particularly .. MORE
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History of Economic Thought
The story was NOT apocryphal. An email from Marjorie Oi, the widow of the late economist Walter Oi, prompted this post. I had written an appreciative piece in Regulation in 2014, shortly after Walter Oi died in December 2013. I often don’t like the titles that editors choose; I usually prefer my own. But I .. MORE
Politics and Economics
Tyler Cowen recently linked to a study that suggests the public does not believe in supply and demand, at least when applied to the housing market: Recent research finds that most people want lower housing prices but, contrary to expert consensus, do not believe that more supply would lower prices. Before addressing housing, it’s worth .. MORE
Books: Reviews and Suggested Readings
[Editor’s note: This is part 3 of a three-part series. You can read part 1 here, and part 2 here.] Good institutions can be hard to come by, however, especially in The Mummy and The Mummy Returns. Institutions are at various stages of development in the story, from the ad hoc criminal justice system, the .. MORE
Economic History
Howard Hughes was one of the richest people in the world during his lifetime. He was also a bit of an eccentric fellow (putting it mildly). But I recently learned an interesting tidbit about his life that puts into perspective just how much wealthier we are today in ways that simply can’t be captured by .. MORE
Macroeconomics
Almost every time I see an expert interviewed on the macroeconomy, they suggest that a substantial portion of the inflation over the past 5 years has been supply side. That’s wrong; none of it has been supply side. I’d go even further; essentially none of the inflation over the past 50 years has been supply .. MORE
Economic Education
Editor’s Note: You may have heard that price theory needs a revival. We agree. The economic way of thinking has of late been subsumed by mathematical analysis absent intuition. Fortunately, Professor Bryan Cutsinger is here to help. We are happy to present this first in what will [for now] be a monthly series in which Cutsinger .. MORE
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Browse our archive of posts by author last nameAdam Smith
In our previous post, we introduced EconLog readers to the possibility of using The Mummy and The Mummy Returns. This post continues that discussion. As another important lesson in economics, the iconic team-up of siblings Evelyn and Jonathan Carnahan with Rick O’Connell illustrate the value of specialization and comparative advantage. Evelyn brings her scholarly knowledge as a .. MORE
Books: Reviews and Suggested Readings
Pro-War Lobby Attacks Russian Influencers by Ted Galen Carpenter, antiwar.com, September 10, 2024. Excerpt: But even in the unlikely event that the charges are accurate, other more fundamental issues should concern all Americans. The statutes that he is accused of violating are sufficiently vague as to pose a threat to freedom of speech and to .. MORE
Books: Reviews and Suggested Readings
Back in July, I did two posts (here and here) on Public Policy for Progressives by my friend and former colleague Jonathan Lipow. Occasionally I’ll hit highlights from the later parts of the book. This one caught my attention. It turns out that countries with high rates of home ownership suffer from serious social pathologies. .. MORE
Our new model incorporates several innovative features: For example, rather than using a representative household, it features a demographically accurate synthetic population with millions of households (matching age, education, race, and consumption habits). Instead of using a representative firm, we model the behavior of tens of thousands of the largest firms, in one-to-one correspondence with .. MORE
A review of How to Educate an American: The Conservative Vision for Tomorrow’s Schools, edited by Michael J. Petrilli and Chester E. Finn.1 Readers who are interested in the future of public education will want to read How to Educate an American: The Conservative Vision for Tomorrow’s Schools edited by Michael J. Petrilli and Chester .. MORE
Book Review of The War on Prices: How Popular Misconceptions about Inflation, Prices, and Value Create Bad Policy. Ryan A. Bourne, Ed.1 Price controls have grown increasingly common across large sectors of the economy such as finance and healthcare, especially in the wake of laws like Dodd-Frank and Obamacare. President Biden’s recent cap on credit .. MORE
A Book Review of The Story of Work: A New History of Humankind, by Jan Lucassen.1 As the subtitle suggests, Jan Lucassen’s massive work of scholarship is ambitious in scope and scale. The entire sweep of human history and the whole of the planet are its canvas and the story it tells and the analysis .. MORE
Range anxiety is about how much is left on the battery. Some people panic. A bigger battery simply means you can drive longer between each recharge and that the recharge takes longer time. The anxiety..
Knut P. Heen, September 17